Opinion
A4
Saturday, February 12, 2022
OUR VIEW
Stepping up
to help out
e often don’t think much about
blood unless it happens to be our
own, but the American Red Cross
and, by extension, hospitals are facing a shortage
of it. So if area residents can help, they should.
That means rolling up your sleeves at a local
blood drive. Such donations will come not a
moment too soon.
The Red Cross, which holds frequent blood
drives locally, reports it is facing a severe crisis
with blood supplies at a low level not seen in
decades.
An ample blood supply is critical for a host of
reasons. Blood donations are used in surgeries,
for those with blood disorders such as sickle cell
disease and for cancer patients. Without an ample
supply of blood, those who need urgent care the
most may face delays and those delays can be life
threatening.
The Red Cross needs the entire nation to step
up and help and decide to give blood.
Most local blood drives supply area hospitals.
That means if residents decide to give blood they
are most likely going to be helping someone from
their town or region. O-negative blood is espe-
cially needed now.
For some, giving blood is a routine matter. For
many of us though, the idea of taking time out of
the day to give blood probably isn’t a priority. It
is often easy to forget that such actions as giving
blood make a huge positive impact. It doesn’t
take long and the blood you may give could save
someone’s life.
Across the region the crisis isn’t as acute as in
other parts of the nation. In La Grande and Baker
City, there has been an increase in blood dona-
tions during the past year, but nationwide blood
donations are down 10% since the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The Red Cross is key to ensuring there is
enough blood. The agency supplies about 40% of
the nation’s blood supply. That means when there
is a local blood drive by the Red Cross, area res-
idents, if they can, should mark it on their cal-
endar. When you give blood you are performing a
civic duty, one that will help the local community
in a crucial way.
Giving blood may not matter for most of us
in our daily lives but if an area resident needs
a blood transfusion and there isn’t enough of it
around, then suddenly a blood donation is a big
deal.
W
EDITORIALS
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necessarily that of The Observer.
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OTHER VIEWS
CRT, Russia and political correctness
ANNE
MORRISON
THINKING OUT LOUD
hen critical race theory
became a “thing,” I had to
Google the phrase to learn
what it meant. Even though I read
about American history and about
racial issues, I was unfamiliar with the
term.
So that’s what it is? Teaching about
structural racism, how it has existed in
our country, and how it persists?
It’s diffi cult to imagine that anyone
in America could deny that institu-
tional racism is a part of our nation’s
history. Slavery was a legally cre-
ated, government-enforced institution,
and it was racially based. The vio-
lent oppression of Black Americans
after Reconstruction was tolerated
and often sanctioned by state and fed-
eral governments, and it was racially
based. Segregation was a govern-
ment-created policy, and it was racially
based. It’s also not diffi cult to see how
our history still shapes our society, and
that many of our attitudes, institutions
and policies today fl ow directly from
those that existed before.
What could be controversial about
that?
It may be true that much of our
history refl ects poorly on the white
Americans who created our institu-
tions and enforced our laws. But if we
are going to prohibit the discussion
W
of any part of our past that makes us
uncomfortable, the list could be very
extensive.
We would not be able to learn
how Columbus treated the Indige-
nous peoples of the Caribbean, or read
the thousands of stories by former
slaves, recorded during the Depres-
sion. Maybe we would need to keep
children from reading “The Diary
of Anne Frank,” which records the
capacity for uncontrolled hatred and
evil by people who called themselves
Christian.
Maybe our society would be more
“united” if we we pretend that the
unpleasant parts of history simply
don’t exist.
We could take our lead from
Russia, where the government is also
moving to present a more “acceptable”
version of its history. Like the United
States, Russia has chapters in its his-
tory that are torturous to explore. One
is the period of collectivization, when
millions of Russians were executed,
deported to forced labor camps in the
Arctic or died of starvation as Sta-
lin’s government seized land for state
control.
In December 2021, Vladimir
Putin’s government shut down sev-
eral groups in Russia that research
and document the Russian govern-
ment’s murder of millions of its own
citizens. Putin’s action is widely seen
as an attempt to silence discussion of
one of Russia’s most brutal periods,
and to present a more “unifying” and
uplifting version of Russian history.
CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
REPRESENTATIVES
GOVERNOR
Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court St.
Salem, OR 97301-4047
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Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1458
Rep.BobbyLevy@state.or.us
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Just as some Americans would like to
prevent discussion about unpleasant
aspects of America’s past, Putin would
prefer a history that celebrates his
country’s glorious accomplishments
while ignoring the violence done by
Russia’s government.
Unfortunately, it is not just con-
servative Americans who believe
that it would be benefi cial to suppress
ideas they dislike, or history that is
unpleasant and uncomfortable. For
years, many people with more lib-
eral perspectives have actively worked
to prevent expression of views they
dislike, by preventing lectures by
speakers whose views are not “polit-
ically correct,” by preventing schools
and universities from teaching per-
spectives they dislike, and by keeping
people whose views they disagree with
from obtaining academic positions.
What diff erence is there, really,
between the people who object to
teaching “critical race theory,” and
Vladimir Putin’s attempts to erase the
violence of Stalinist times, and those
who try to suppress the expression of
“unenlightened” views and the people
who hold them? All show a profound
intolerance of other viewpoints and
perspectives. All seem to completely
lack confi dence that their own per-
spectives will survive and fl ourish if
they are forced to compete with dif-
ferent, confl icting views.
———
Anne Morrison, a La Grande resi-
dent and retired attorney, has lived in
Union County since 2000.
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